Happy Houghton

Jordan Houghton is looking to the future after notching his first Rovers goal and Man of the Match award.

The young defensive midfielder struck the equalising goal against Leyton Orient and collected a bottle of bubbly from the match sponsor after another impressive display helped Rovers to a 3-1 victory.

He said: “I’m really pleased with my first Man of the Match award and my first goal, but the most important thing is putting a good performance in, getting a win and putting us in a good place for next week.

"In the past couple of games I’ve had a couple of efforts on goal, I’ve been getting forward a bit more because we’ve been dominating games so I can push on. I had two chances just before I scored which were blocked, so I was really pleased to put it away.

"In the past couple of games you can feel a buzz about the whole group - not just the starting XI, or those who are playing, but those not in the squad, the coaches and the staff. The gaffer set us a target of winning every game in November and we’ve done that, now we have to keep setting small targets and hopefully that will finish with the end goal of promotion.”

Houghton’s loan runs until January, but he is keen to extend his stay in South Yorkshire until at least the end of the season.

He said: “It is definitely something that I want to do. I am still waiting to find out about my contract with Chelsea – it is up at the end of the season, so I am waiting to see what is going to happen with that end of things.

“Once that gets sorted we can look to extend the loan because it is what all parties want. Hopefully I can stay until the end of the season.

“I am playing every week, but you can’t get complacent and expect to be on the teamsheet every time. You have still got to train every day like it’s your last training session – there are still players coming back from injury, or not in the side who want to impress, so I can’t sit back and expect to play every game. That’s just not how football works.”

Houghton is keen to continue a partnership with Rovers boss Darren Ferguson and assistant Gavin Strachan which he feels is really improving him as a player.

He added: “The gaffer puts a lot of confidence in me. He wants me to be the one who gets us playing, to go and find the ball, get it off the centre-halves or the keeper. I feel my game comes quite naturally to get on the ball. It is good he has that confidence in me and I can only thank him for that.

“The manager really wants to improve me so I can go back to Chelsea as a better player. Coming into the last few games after addressing those little errors I think we have really kicked on and showed confidence in each other.”